Music Director’s Page

From Thomas Hall, Our Music Director

Worship in November begins with All Saints Sunday on November 6. The Opening Voluntary will be a setting of the chorale Before Your Thorone I Now Appearby Johann Sebastian Bach. The choir will present the motet Blessed are the Dead by 20th-century Lutheran composer Carl Schalk.

Between 1965 and 2004 Schalk taught church music at Concordia University Chicago. During this time, he guided the development of the university’s Master of Church Music degree, which has since graduated more than 140 students. Schalk was a member of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, which produced Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978. He was also the editor of the journal Church Music from 1966 to 1980. He is a member of the Music Advisory Committee of Concordia Publishing House.

On November 13Dr. Linda Pointer will return as guest organist, and Mary Wyant will be the mezzo-soprano soloist.

November 20 is the Festival of Christ the King. Our celebration will include Henry Purcell’s popular anthem, Rejoice in the Lord, Alway. Then, on November 27, we begin a new church year with the First Sunday of Advent. We will switch our service music, mostly to ELW setting 5, with a Hymn of Praise from LBW setting 3. Psalm tones and Gospel Acclamations will also change for the new season.

Yours in ministry, Tom Hall

Trinity’s Bell Choir

THE KNIES – JAMERSON MEMORIAL ORGAN

Designed by the M. P. Moller Pipe Organ Company

The present Trinity organ was built by the M.P. Moller Company of Hagerstown, Maryland and erected in the church in the autumn of 1968. It replaced an organ built by the Pilcher company in 1925.

The organ contains 25 ranks (1,096 pipes), with 21 stops and 18 independent voices distributed over two keyboards and pedal.

]Thomas Hall at the M.P. CandleLight Service

Thomas Hall at the M.P.The pipes are placed in a chamber on the second-story level, to the front of the south transept. From here the organ speaks into the nave and the chancel. Pipes of the great principal chorus are placed on a cantilevered chest extending into the nave, resulting in superior clarity and presence of sound.

Two additions to the organ have been made since its initial building: The first was the a flute stop at 4′ pitch in the great division, added in the mid 1980’s. The stop was named Wasserflöte or “Water Flute” after Trinity’s organist and choirmaster William E. Waters. It is the only known use of this stop name in the world. The addition was built by master organbuilder John Dower of Lincolnton, NC.

In 2005, a set of small bells called a zimbelstern was added, also by Mr. Dower.

The initial financial gift for the organ was made by the Knies family. When the organ was dedicated on Novmeber 17, 1968, it was christened the Knies-Jamerson Memorial Organ in memory of this gift and of R. Walton Jamerson, Jr., the beloved organist and choirmaster who was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 1965.